Mental Health

What is Mind? No matter.

What is Matter? Never mind.

There’s nothing original about that. But I have been asked to write about “Mental Health,” and it was the first matter that came to my mind.

Actually, mental health is harder to contemplate than mental illness. Psychiatrists and other specialists no doubt have their own checklists to guide their decision, when it comes to judging whether or not a person is right in the head. Sensitive government work, or other kinds of employment needing to be fully understood and kept secret from some third party, may require an applicant to have an even higher than average level of sanity. 

But for most ordinary purposes, a mentally healthy person is one who can function well amid the tortures inflicted every day by our society, even if society itself is crazy. This would mean that they can endure an ordinary amount of frustration and stress, whether driving in heavy traffic (or looking for a parking place), dealing with gadgets and devices which aren’t working properly, confronting government regulations, or being at either end of the process of hiring and firing.

Getting old, you might think, causes some of these hazards to ease up, but deterioration of the brain cells can be another threat to sanity, and good mental health may partly depend on keeping mentally active, even as physical health declines. I myself have been thinking about this subject since before I became uncomfortably old. One of my more popular epigrams said: “Mental health doesn’t mean always being happy – If it did, nobody would qualify.” But none of the standard tests even include happiness as a criterion – at least not very openly. They are more likely to ask if you sleep well, if you have a positive outlook (suicide is definitely a no no), or if people like you – or at least, if you think they do.

But there is some connection between health and happiness, if it only be of the gustatory kind. Hence my observation that “I’m on a special Mental Health Diet – I can only eat what I enjoy.” I also once produced this consoling message: “Take heart! Many great things have been done by people in poor mental health.” For some reason, this makes me think now of the famous poem, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, called “Kubla Khan,” which would make any person unfamiliar with its background question the author’s sanity. Actually, it was induced by his use of opium – and this opens a whole can of worms concerning the relationship between drugs and mental health, especially since many doctors (and not only the head-shrinking kind) now prescribe certain drugs to deal with certain mental disorders.

In the case of Coleridge, who was writing in 1797, we must regret that the poem was never finished – a consequence (according to the author’s own account) of an unexpected visit on business by an un-named “person from Porlock,” who must therefore remain eternally, if anonymously, notorious, for having permanently interrupted the creation of what is still considered a poetic masterpiece.

But it doesn’t take mental imbalance to produce great art – although that may sometimes help. (Another example that comes to mind was Vincent van Gogh, who was certainly a nut case. Cutting off his own ear was bad enough – but then he had to commemorate the event in a painting.)

As regards ordinary writers, the very activity of literary creation requires a certain degree of mental stability. Much as we may impugn the rules of grammar, they do impose a discipline less familiar than in other media. If you want to be understood, you have to write coherently, which – as I can testify – is not always as easy as it might seem to be. Many years of experience have taught me that if anything I say might by any chance be misinterpreted, it probably will be.

But surely the whole concept of mental health must be a cultural phenomenon. Why are the countries of Scandinavia now considered the most stable and sane in the world, while, going south from there, you come to areas where the entire society seems to be off its rocker?

Religion must also enter into this debate (or should I say debacle?). How can a person be mentally healthy and believe in God – or not believe in God? I will let a great epigrammatist have the final word:

“My intense pursuit of physical
and mental health
Is ruining my body,
and destroying my mind.”